I always try to improve my time management skill.
As we suspected before, this is the most important skill to get things done or to produce quality works.
It is also the essence of life as a muslim, i.e. using the allocated time effectively,
as the time that passes will never return and the time also that will bring us closer to death.
The Prophet 
said: ”Take
advantage of five matters before five other matters: your youth before
you become old; your health, before you fall sick; your wealth, before
you become poor; your free time before you become preoccupied, and your
life, before your death.” (Narrated by Ibn Abbas in the Mustadrak of Hakim & Musnad Imam Ahmad. Sahih)
A good time management skill depends on plan, routine, focus and priority.
These are our weaknesses, because we don't have measurable plan, don't establish routine, fail to focus and difficult to prioritize the most important task.
In my search, I've found that at least we could use two methods of improving all elements for our time management skill. I try to work with limited principles to avoid overrated confusion.
The first is Pareto analysis.
Many experts use this concept in Project Management to help them to organize time for the most important tasks.
Pareto Analysis is a statistical technique in
decision-making used for the selection of a limited number of tasks that
produce significant overall effect. It uses the Pareto Principle
(also known as the 80/20 rule) the idea that by doing 20% of the work
you can generate 80% of the benefit of doing the entire job.
(https://www.google.com/search?q=Pareto+analysis&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)
We just decide on pursue the task/work package that has a greater impact on our project. By prioritizing the task, we hope for a great benefit of doing the job.
For example, we do need a Project Action Plan for every big project. It consists of background, objectives, timeline, risk assessment, stakeholder assessment, etc. We make a plan to save us on wasting time on trying to find our direction towards the goals.
If we cannot do this project this year, we must plan to do this next year. Don't rush to finish and acquire everything, just do the task at different stage of our life (this reminds me of Prof Pellert in Berlin).
The second useful method is Podomoro Technique.
The aim is to have a plan, routine and focus on our work in some increments of time.
To do it, we need to break our plan into several short sessions, then take a short and scheduled break.
How to do it:
Set 25 minutes to work on our task, then have a 5 minutes break.
Use a timer to remind us for the set time.
Use 3-4 x 25 minutes for each big task without distraction (no wifi, etc), and give 15-20 minutes break.
(https://www.focusboosterapp.com/the-pomodoro-technique)
This method is really awesome.
For someone who always find it is difficult to focus and keep myself present in doing a big task, I've found it effective to reduce my to do list very quickly.
Pekanbaru,
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